iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I simply cannot believe he thought this made him look good. His PR team must be entirely on another planet.

npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Would've loved to see Gareth and Robbo back, but you can't have it all. Was quite touched to see Mustoe there given the journey involved (and not just because we'd both taken basically the same route to get back either). Glad to get a chance to give Hackney a send off too.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Think it speaks volumes of the club that so many were willing to make the trip back after such a long time, including a number who didn't even leave on particularly good terms.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Legacy game was a delightful and often really touching event, deeply glad it coincided with me being back on Teesside. Aitor and Leo walking out arm in arm like that got me genuinely choked up, what a club.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

In this case it actually turns out to be a BlueCo thing, which is at least a little more interesting again.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

These are always the most curious Romano posts, because why is he posting about this? I know it’s usually answered by ‘who is this kid’s agent’, but still.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Will this deter me from booking a red eye next time I come home so I don’t feel like I’ve been kicked in the head by the time I get back to Teesside? History suggests the chances are slim.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I have once again achieved ‘no sleep on the red eye to London’ status. Continuing my streak to 16 years.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Have recently spent some time over that side of Champlain and I’ve never seen more signs for a Dem over there than there are right now. Anecdata obviously, but usually it’s ruby red and the signs suggest that. It’s at least possible that Stefanik did enormous damage to the brand in this district

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Obviously it's good they've been charged, but also *gestures at the rest of the top end of the Premier League*

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I dunno, I guess I care about them catching Man City in the same way i'd care about them catching the final horse as it bolted from my stable. But all them other horses are still out there, if you catch my drift.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Will Lankshear vs sugar maple, in essence.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Thought i'd timed my trip back to North East England so i'd be back in time for peak Vermont foliage but an unexpectedly cool spell has moved it to basically the middle of my trip. Can going to see Boro v Wolves in person make up for missing it? Sure is a lot of pressure.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I also think this is, despite this site’s reputation, a big tell that a lot of people here never spent time in any alt music scenes pre-internet, if you think ‘not familiar with a long running no. 1/using it as a badge of honour’ is a Bad Cultural Sign then hoo boy do I have some stories for you.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It is both simultaneously true that the monoculture has eroded to the point where it is trivially easy to not hear The Biggest Song In The World and also that it was perfectly possible to be this way in a pre-internet age. I know that because I also did this then. Not everything is a statement.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Anyway, poptimism was once good and has now subsumed a lot of music to the point that there are no meaningful critics and has reduced most music listening to utterly passive mush for babies. Welcome to my TED talk.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I can be aware I’m in a bubble politically (which fine?) but I’m not going to go ‘should I listen to this song from a genre I do not enjoy’ just to somehow stay in touch with what Middle America is up to, for the same reasons I have not watched Young Sheldon. I know it’s a thing, I do not care.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This ain’t politics, I’m not required to know why people think pop country is good. My track record is that 90%+ of what I’ve heard from it is straight bilge and not knowingly having heard a certain song either means a) i’m now Old or b) I don’t like pop country. It ain’t deeper than that.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

My take on the interminable bubble/Ella Langley discourse is that it’s fine to be in a ‘bubble’ for something as inconsequential as music, once upon a pre-poptimism time we called that ‘having personal taste’

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Like it's one thing to be so bubbled up that you both do not know the song *and* also do not understand its appeal. I'm sure i'd get its appeal just fine if I'd heard it, I just probably won't, much as I haven't knowingly heard anything by say Morgan Wallen or watched Yellowstone. Ain't for me!

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I think people are confusing 'bubble' for 'personal taste' in this specific respect. It can overlap with a bubble, sure, but the reason I haven't heard this song is that I do not like pop country and thus make a point of avoiding it. I do think that's meaningfully different to not being aware.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Hard to know what to make of it overall? Probably more positives than negatives considering the opposition, but also some stuff that was genuinely laughably bad from the defence at points.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Negatives are that Quansah was our best defender, which erm, not a great sign. Without Rice we looked insanely vulnerable to the counter.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Well, positives are that Anderson, Jude, Gordon and Saka all looked great, and that we probably win if the turf doesn’t go out from under Kane’s feet.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Yeah Konsa and Guehi ain’t it, both absolutely dreadful on the ball, weak, slow, poor positioning. They’d look better with Rice in front of them for sure, but this is as poor a CB pairing as we’ve had in quite some time IMO.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I guess in some ways it’s comforting that both of their goals have come from catastrophic defensive errors rather than a systems issue. But also our defenders have generally been utter shite. Actually think Quansah has had the best showing despite how much people don’t rate him.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Honestly, Konsa and Guehi aside i think everyone has played well here. MLS maybe a bit too eager at times but he’s still been solid.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Think we’ve deserved that, despite the problems at the back. Lovely goal.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

We’ve looked okay in spells here but the defensive shape has been just awful. Konsa and Guehi look like they’ve no idea where they’re supposed to be.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

‘How dare they intentionally break financial rules?’ I say as my club spends £75m on a backup midfielder and takes a 14 year old from a League One academy.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

We went from a team comfortably able to compete in the Premier League to a mid-table Championship perennial over the course of 20 years, and it wasn’t because anything about the club changed. Maybe some introspection about sustainability is due from everyone here?

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Gotta say, seeing other big Prem club fans up on their high horses about City is both bizarre and funny to me, as if they’re not almost exactly as complicit in the utter corruption of the sport.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Either way, this is firmly in the ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ category for now.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Also don’t think you can discount the ‘was one of the only political figures to handle the pandemic well’ goodwill having firmly run out of road for him too.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Just said similar; anecdotally I do think that the ICE incident in South Burlington was a big moment for a lot of older people in Burlington who were usually quite happy with Scott's performance. Lots of folks I know who were pro-Scott were beyond furious about it afterwards.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Put that alongside some controversial education reforms and a general vibe that he can veto what he wants in what is the most reliably blue state in the nation, and this wouldn't surprise me hugely. Though, i'd still take it with a huge grain of salt, we're rarely polled here for obvious reasons.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Anecdotally, I know *a lot* of older Burlington folks who have had enough of him after his continued denial of meaningful aid for the drug issue downtown (regardless of how true the panic over it is), alongside the South Burlington ICE incident it's tipped them over the edge I think.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Emailing ‘info@gov.au’ to confess my many industrial-scale crimes and calling it a day.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Shame it's a Chelsea kit because the Amiga logo is a delight.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I’ve heard the same, and had similar with Nick Gibb on various projects. Didn’t agree with them on much else but when it came to specifically ed standards they were pretty clearly the major success of that whole govt. In this very narrow sense you do unfortunately got to hand it to them.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

You’d also think the respective messes in the Welsh and Scottish curriculums might have prompted some introspection on all of this, relative to the reforms by a truly hated Westminster government in England, but nope!

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I presume it's largely to do with impact on the curriculum stuff/teachers disliking a lot of it (which they aren't totally wrong about the impacts of sometimes), but when every single proposed alternative makes it so much worse it's just following ideology ahead of evidence, which - not for me.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

It's bizarre to me, standardised testing is maybe *the* area of education that has the single greatest amount of resource put into it regarding equity across race and gender, making tests is a painstaking process.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

The SAT - it's actually good, folks! And from a UK perspective, literally the only success the conservative government had over the past decade was education standards.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Maybe it's just because I had the good fortune to end up in the assessment space where the evidence truly just stares you in the face, but christ so many on the left are so willing to throw regular attaining (and indeed many gifted!) pupils under the bus for mad equity ideas.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Correct, being someone who is on the left in educational research has been insanely eye-opening as to how fundamentally unserious many of my fellow travellers are. Truly 80% of progressive education work is 'alright, but what if we made pupil outcomes worse for [insert intractable reason]?'

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Stars: ⭐⭐⭐ ACD - a menace, tired a bit but I still thought it was weird he came off. ⭐⭐ Arf - best game for us, great on the ball, lovely goal. ⭐ Brittain - our only consistently good defender this season, it seems.

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npwrth @npwrth.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Well, almost impossible to know what to make of us at this point isn't it. Equal parts brittle and resilient, terrible mentality but then great mentality to get back into it. Think Kim is struggling a bit but we're also right in the mix. Very odd stuff.

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